Sean T. Collins has written about comics and popular culture professionally since 2001 and on this very blog since 2003. He has written for Maxim, The Comics Journal, Stuff, Wizard, A&F Quarterly, Comic Book Resources, Giant, ToyFare, The Onion, The Comics Reporter and more. His comics have been published by Top Shelf, Partyka, and Family Style. He blogs here and at Robot 6.

May 8, 2004

It's been a big week for funnybook thrills here at ADDTF. I've spoken with two living-legend artists by phone for a freelance assignment, I bought $120 worth of comics for a grand total of three bucks and change in actual cash thanks to a birthday gift certificate and store credit, and to top it all off, I unknowingly played a big part in the creation of the latest issue of Nick Bertozzi's Rubber Necker, which I finally picked up.

Nick, as I hope you're already aware, is an extraordinarily gifted cartoonist who, thematically and stylistically, seems to stand alone amongst his peer group. From his madcap league-of-extraoridnary-modernists serial The Salon to his none-more-black collection The Masochists to his modern-day Eightball anthology series Rubber Necker, he's shown a mastery of a variety of styles, genres, and tones, all engaged with the help of fluid linework and one of the most singular color palettes in all of alternative comics.

So naturally, when I'd hire him to do illustration work back when I was an editor of the A&F Quarterly, I'd order him to draw pictures of naked people. Seriously! Nick was the illustrator for our regular video-game review column, and in illo after illo he outdid himself in the witty smut arena. (Check it out!)And lo and behold, he's reprinted all of his "Naughty Preppies" pieces in Rubber Necker #4, and thanked me in print to boot! I couldn't be more flattered and honored. Nick's one of the great ones, and I'm proud to say that the world is now graced with more Bertozzi drawings of erect nipples and man-ass than it otherwise would be had I not intervened.